Seaport Transportation

The property is approximately 1000-feet from the closest residence on B Street, with a number of other industrial uses, including a T maintenance facility, between the property and the residential neighborhood.
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How could the T think of putting a layover yard in an area whose only buffer to the neighborhood is a T maintenance facility!!
 
Methinks some South Boston pols are pouting that none of the potential options--recycling center or T layover--line their pockets with candy. Because that parcel is so isolated, well-buffered, and traffic-channeled by 93 and the haul road. That's no way to get free streetscaping or a new firehouse "for the safety of the children." Ergo, temper tantrum must commence until somebody gives them candy.

Their constituents couldn't care less. Most of them probably don't even know where Widett Circle is. But they also can't care less to vote in numbers so...meh...their civic leaders have little motivation to stay on-point.
 
They're trying to shake down the T for jobs for the boyos. Welcome to Southie.
 
Who ties their entire business venture to a parcel that's been a known land taking candidate for over a decade?
 
^ Someone who overestimates the leverage their backers have to stop the land-taking from happening.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
^ Someone who overestimates the leverage their backers have to stop the land-taking from happening.
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Yeah. And look how overdesigned that recycling center is in the renderings. It's 'pretty'. Which seems like a cry to justify its existence on the property, since the current cold storage warehouse they own has for years only been operating at a fraction of its capacity.

95% of the population doesn't even know where Widett Circle is or knows that it's technically a public street. I once took a wrong turn off the 93 Frontage Rd. down the access road to Widett after dark when I got caught in traffic too late to make the left-turn lane to backtrack to South Bay shopping center. The turnout is shortly after the Amtrak driveway with the ominous authorized personnel only warning sign. I thought I turned by accident into one of their other access roads and was like "Ohshitohshitohshit!" while I looped around the Food Market warehouses to get the hell out of there before being stopped by security. It was poorly lit and scary, with little to no separation between road and Food Market driveways and double-parked big rigs lining the road. NOBODY who isn't an employee or delivery truck driver even knows what that place looks like, let alone ever has a reason to go there. And this early-sunset time of year I would never go during the tail end of business hours, because it looks every bit like a place where no one would hear you scream.

Not a bad location for a smelly recycling center, but if the thing is banking on big public business by building an attractive and inviting full-service facility they're going to have problems drawing people that far off the street grid without saturation signage everywhere on Frontage Rd. between Southampton and W. 4th. They'd be way better off putting it on one of the piece o' shit industrials parcels on Dot Ave. by Andrew or Mass Ave. by South Bay that people actually know how to navigate.

I highly doubt they've got much of an argument vs. the state and BRA for that parcel and will fold very quickly before taking their chances against an eminent domain threat. They can barter for a far better site taking a relocation offer vs. digging in. The Southie pols trying to NIMBY anything there are just grifters. They don't give a shit what's at Widett because it is in some totally other and inaccessible universe from the neighborhood (and...uhh...wouldn't that geographically be considered Dorchester to begin with???). They just want a handout. If they were really concerned about truck traffic they'd be raising a stink about Massport's soon-to-be-enacted expansion and haul road plans at Marine Industrial and Conley Terminal...but they're happy as clams about that because of all the $$$ they'll reap off redevelopment on E. 1st St.
 
Commercial Interests
Gridlock Putting Development At Risk
Pushing For Public Transit Study Is Key

By Scott Van Voorhis

Banker & Tradesman Columnist
Purchase Reprint Printer Friendly Email This ShareThisShare For such a smarty-pants state, we can be so spectacularly stupid sometimes. Virginia is spending a couple billion dollars to expand light rail along its equivalent of our Route 128 corridor, scrambling to keep up with the rapid development of big Washington suburbs.

http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/news157543.html

I don't have access to the whole article but at least somebody is getting it.
 
Looking at the D street hotel map in the other thread, and thinking of the growth here and in Southie, what would be good possible routes for a Southie/Seaport streetcar?

I think like a City Point, down broadway, up D street then into the tunnel would be great. It's a pretty direct connection, would run in loops and hit major residential and business areas. In the seaport you could even take out a lane and make it dedicated ROW.

The biggest hangup I see is Southie. In reading about the bike lane proposals, people yelled about double parking as an excuse to go against bike infrastructure, so this would need a lot of soothing. Maybe it belongs in the crazy transit thread, but is this the best routing in peoples eyes?
 
choo said:
Looking at the D street hotel map in the other thread, and thinking of the growth here and in Southie, what would be good possible routes for a Southie/Seaport streetcar?

I think like a City Point, down broadway, up D street then into the tunnel would be great. It's a pretty direct connection, would run in loops and hit major residential and business areas. In the seaport you could even take out a lane and make it dedicated ROW.

The biggest hangup I see is Southie. In reading about the bike lane proposals, people yelled about double parking as an excuse to go against bike infrastructure, so this would need a lot of soothing. Maybe it belongs in the crazy transit thread, but is this the best routing in peoples eyes?
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The old City Point line that ran into the subway until 1953 is roughly the route of the current 7 bus. Since the 7, 9, and 10 all overlap once they reach Summer/L that's easily the ripest route for a local streetcar spitting out of a dual-mode Transitway.


Now...one improvement to the area that is coming imminently is the Massport construction of Conley Terminal Haul Rd., which will span Summer St. to a Farragut Rd. extension roughly where Power House Rd. meets Summer on the other side of the bridge. As part of that project Massport will be creating a diagonal connecting street here between Southie Haul and the Summer/Drydock intersection so the trucks have a straighter shot to the bridge and don't tie up Summer traffic @ the Pumphouse Rd. light. That in turn serves up a straighter shot for all transit vehicles heading to Southie out of SL Way. Laying tracks from SL Way over this connecting street and the bridge is pretty because the bridge-proper--all 4 lanes of it--is now the only place on the Seaport side where the trolleys run in full mixed traffic. All the rest is restricted to trucks and transit vehicles.


So if you do street-running in Southie it's a manageable 1-1/4 miles in full unrestricted traffic on the Southie side to Marine Park @ City Point. Easier sell on the neighborhood. With that effectively displacing the 7 then you can fiddle around with the 9 and 10 to recalibrate those routes to be a little more complementary to this setup.


The other option, a little less attractive, is to lay rail on the Conley Haul Rd. itself. That more or less follows SL3's old route a block north of the old E. 1st St. routing. Misses much of the neighborhood density, but has the big attraction in a street-running phobic state and neighborhood of keeping the tracks entirely on the truck- + transit-restricted roads and only intermixing with cars on the 4-lane bridge. Light volumes, no parallel parkers, no double parkers, minimum possible traffic signals...and no amateur drivers period.

To make this work they would need to hit a home run on the TOD potential of that barren north side of E. 1st that the haul road will subdivide into a new block that can be fully redeveloped into a transitional mixed-use block buffering the dense residential from the waterfront industry. As an economic stimulator it makes sense to have a complete TOD solution here for the biggest swath of all-new density the neighborhood has ever seen. If the street grid gets extended so Farragut on one end meets the haul road and a pick 'em best-2-out-of-3 of M, O, or P get extended then you have a couple intermediate stops. And they can get to E. Broadway/Marine Park or Columbia Rd. by putting a trolley reservation on the park grass.

That traces the outline of the neighborhood and serves up the most rapid transit-like stop spacing for a fast trip. But because it misses the gut of the neighborhood the redevelopment anchor along E. 1st has to be very strong, the trolley frequencies have to be very good and worthy of the extra precautions taken to avoid general street-running, and the buses have to be recalibrated to complement it with a thick, effortless transfer net. Possibly even with an Urban Ring bus flank going Transitway --> E. Broadway --> Red Line Broadway or Andrew --> Dudley to balance the rest of the neighborhood's rapid transit-ish coverage.


Food for thought. In a perfect world a "7" Green Line branch is most logical, since it used to be a real thing. But the other option is worth considering politically if traffic separation and TOD coattails are needed to move the resources. Either way is transformative to the neighborhood...one just requires a lot more multimodal TLC on the Yellow Line side to make sure everyone has equitable access to those benefits.
 
The EGE said:
Yep, that was me.
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Hey, quick question: You cite a PMT document which is cached, but I can't get the links for some of the chapters to work. Can you point me to the section which talked about Worcester Line DMUs?

Sorry if this is a better PM, but I think it can be seen as general interest...
 
The problem with converting the 7 is that the bus is superior. Even when traffic is a little crowded on Summer Street, it's still a straight shot to Southie and the Transitway is not. The 7 doesn't have the extended stop at Silver Line Way, either - and it's also a lower fare. The 7 is the second most frequent route (after the #111), with a 4-minute rush hour headway. Additionally, it drops off on the surface rather than several flights of stairs below it.

When the T ran the SL3 route, it got so low ridership that it was ultimately discontinued. While the improved connector road will help, unless the T does something to make any Transitway service (dual-mode, full-route trackless, or streetcar) vastly preferable to the 7 (already one of the T's best routes), the new service will outright fail.

Equilibria, I'll get you working links when I'm back later this evening.
 
I suspect as the Seaport develops more, Summer St will get more and more crowded.
 
Equilibria said:
Hey, quick question: You cite a PMT document which is cached, but I can't get the links for some of the chapters to work. Can you point me to the section which talked about Worcester Line DMUs?

Sorry if this is a better PM, but I think it can be seen as general interest...
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The following links currently work for me (I updated the links to a 2012 archiving; archive.org used to have trouble with large PDFs).

System Expansion (section 5C)
File 1
File 2: 5C-58/59 (Readville - Allston)
File 3
File 4: 5C-96/97 (JFK-Riverside), -102/103 (South Station - Riverside)

Under Service Enhancements (5B) (File), page 5B-9 lists a South Station-Yawkey shuttle, to be operated with conventional commuter rail equipment. Unlike the three other shuttles, it was given a high rating; its largest addition of service was to be off-peak, it would not require new equipment, and it would not cross the wye and interfere with train movements. It's also worth noting that it gives a decent two-seat ride to the Seaport District that only requires the transfer to the Silver Line at South Station.
 
Hypothetically, is the existing Bypass Road and adjacent Track 61 clear of underground utilities for a cut-and-cover heavy rail?
 
The EGE said:
File 4: 5C-96/97 (JFK-Riverside), -102/103 (South Station - Riverside).
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Thanks! For their analysis, the T added no stations inside 128 - important to take any advantage of the DMU technology - and didn't serve South Station. Their alternative hits SS but makes no stops. It really seems like they cherry-picked the worst-performing Riverside projects in order to throw water on the whole concept.
 
Shepard said:
Hypothetically, is the existing Bypass Road and adjacent Track 61 clear of underground utilities for a cut-and-cover heavy rail?
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No. Because the Transitway's end at SL Way is as far as you can realistically subway through the Seaport. By SL Way the Pike has already portaled into the Ted, Haul Rd. has already rejoined the street grid on the curve towards Northern Ave., and Track 61 has gone street-running on final freight-only approach into Marine Terminal. That's a truly awful 2 blocks to dig underground to get to Summer St. and a crossing of Reserve Channel. Abandoning SL Way to cross the Pike earlier would forfeit access to all the development on the northeasterly side of the Seaport (and SL Way can become a much more 'proper' station when they finally burrow under D St.). Then of course if you want to spring a Southie subway off there tunneling under Southie's narrow legacy street grid on the other side of Reserve Channel is nearly impossible. You need the LRT-via-Transitway's modal flexibility to run anywhere on the surface if you want any rail whatsoever in Southie. HRT wouldn't allow further tunneling.

If need be they can 1) knock the Summer St. bridge to 2 lanes and plunk down a grade-separated trolley reservation, 2) widen the bridge and plunk down a similar reservation, or 3) build an adjacent parallel span for the trolleys to maintain grade separation. Then turn onto Conley Haul Rd. so all street-running the whole length from SL Way to City Point is on the truck+transit-restricted roads that don't have any traditional street-running pitfalls. Then stick to the grass side of Farragut on a reservation to trace the outline of the neighborhood down to Columbia Rd.


Cut-and-covering Track 61 all the way from its start requires 1-1/2 miles of new tunneling from the Red Line Cabot Yard lead tracks to hit the same exact block as SL Way on the opposite side of the Pike. Vs. 2/3 mile of Green Line tunneling from the end of the Tremont tunnel to start of the Transitway to reach the exact same place on the same block as SL Way. The RL routing would entirely miss SS and the Courthouse area because it would fork off the Cabot Yard leads around Broadway. You would only be able to get to the Seaport from JFK...nowhere from downtown. Ridership would be much poorer than LRT-via-Transitway. And all of that for total duplication of RL @ Broadway and SL/GL via Transitway. That's a heinous waste of money. Probably twice as expensive as the GL connector at one-quarter the benefit. If the Transitway-to-downtown connection gets finished there is no reason for a transit line to exist any longer on the Track 61 corridor. Except for maybe an express bus on the Haul Road.

And a GL connection would not be crippled. It's a fast trip from Boylston to SS with only 1 likely intermediate stop en route and would probably have tunnel stretches of 45+ MPH. A signalized Transitway would work a lot better than today and have enough capacity to mix frequent trains and buses. The trains would be originating from the Green Line's uncongested north end where they can move through the GC-to-Park congestion on-time because that's the only slow pinch on the whole trip from Somerville. Instead of all the westbound-originating branches that are already wheezing hard by the time they hit Hynes or Copley and totally fucked by Park-GC. Then it peels off onto its own tracks immediately after Park. This works as a reliable, on-time service where the rest of the GL doesn't by tapping the end with the extra capacity while avoiding 80% of the end where the congestion is.

I really don't see why HRT "must be so". LRT serves every possible need and hits superior destinations. If it's not worth it to do a street-running branch into the heart of Southie, run hella frequent buses looping at SL Way where the whole neighborhood is only 10 minutes and a few stops away from a downtown one-seat ride. No need to overthink this with duplicate theoretical routings that don't serve any clear purpose for their batshit costs.
 
Makes sense, F-Line, but I was actually thinking along these lines:

fUtcez2.png


Yellow segments are those where a more involved engineering solution is required, but most of it may be fairly easy cut-and-cover to link the Seaport directly with Back Bay.

I like this because it not only serves as an important radial link, but also serves Dudley as well, parallels a very high ridership stretch of the #1 and #66 buses, while also giving an important link between the Seaport and Back Bay.
 
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